Once upon a time and not so long ago, blogs looked like blogs and websites looked like websites. One could easily tell them apart.
Then WordPress came along and changed everything. Now, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to tell the difference between blogs and websites. Not so much in terms of what the sites are being used for, but in terms of web design and also being able to tell what’s under the surface.
(Can You Tell Which Application A Website Has Been Built With?)
For website owners, understanding the difference between a Content Management System application like WordPress and other website-building software is huge, not so much in terms of the technical differences, but more importantly, in terms of the things that many website owners are concerned with, like web development costs, ease of use, ability to maintain the website up-to-date, managing web content, etc.
Think about this …
Which of the following options would you choose?
A) An eye-catching, professional-looking website that is expensive to build, or
B) The same eye-catching, professional-looking website, but at a cost that turns out to be significantly less than the cost of getting option ”A”.
If you picked option “B”, then you need to know more about WordPress, why WordPress can be used to create a beautiful website that will normally turn out to be much less expensive to build than websites built using website-building software … and how to tell these two types apart!
WordPress is the world’s most popular online publishing platform and content management system (CMS). It is a powerful and easy-to-use CMS that is ideally suited for all businesses and non-technical users.
Whether your reason for having a web site is for personal blogging or business use, WordPress is easy enough for a novice with no technical skills to use, yet it offers a range of helpful extensions that make your website more effective in terms of getting your content published, promoting visitor engagement, generating business leads and sales, scalability, etc.
With almost one in every five websites around the world being powered by WordPress, chances are that if you already own a website, your site could probably be powered by WordPress too.
And if you don’t have a website yet, or are thinking of getting one built, then wouldn’t it be great to be able to show your web developer an existing website with the design and layout that you like, know that it was built with WordPress and that you can, therefore, get something similarly built for your business to a smaller budget if required?
Is My Blog WordPress?
Do you need to know if a website uses WordPress? Maybe you’ve come to our site because you’ve read about WordPress, and you’re now wondering if your site runs on the WordPress software, or some other CMS application.
Also, have you ever looked at a competitor’s website and wondered what they’re doing to try and get better results online?
Knowing if your competitor’s site is built with WordPress can tell you a few things about their strategies and methods, such as what themes or plugins they are using.
Here are a number of ways to tell if sites are running on WordPress:
Search The Page Source Code
If you know how to check the source code of a web page (e.g. Firefox Menu > Web Developer > Page Source if using Firefox, or Google Menu > More Tools > View Source if using Google Chrome), you can look for obvious tell-tale footprints that the site was built using WordPress …
(How to view your web page source code using the Firefox browser)
Let’s say that you are browsing online and you visit a web site that you like, and you wonder if the site was built with WordPress …
First, bring up the site’s source code on your screen, using the methods described above.
In the source code, you can search for “wp-content” either by scanning the code …
Or using your browser’s “Find” function …
(Use Firefox’s ‘Find’ function)
This will quickly tell you if the site is powered by WordPress or not.
Note: If you are unable to locate “wp-content” in the page source code, it doesn’t mean that it’s not a WordPress site.
There are other ways to find out if a site runs on the WordPress software, as we will soon discuss.
As the focus of this post is to help non-technical users, however, below you will find a number of easier methods you can use to check if your website is powered by WordPress other than searching the source code.
Ask Your Website Developer
While this may seem like the most obvious thing to do, a number of website development companies, for whatever reason, may build their clients a website and not tell them it’s been built with WordPress.
If you used a website developer or got somebody else to build your website, just ask your web developer or whoever built your website if the website has been built using WordPress.
That was easy, huh?
Okay … what if you can’t reach the person who looks after your website, or what if you’ve come across a site that you really like while surfing the net and you need to know if it was built using WordPress?
Powered By WordPress
If the site uses a WP theme where the theme templates have not been edited, you can often find a “Powered by WordPress” notice shown in the footer section of the site …
(Powered by WordPress)
If these simple methods aren’t helpful to you, here are some other ways of telling whether a website was built with WordPress or not …
Sites That Can Tell You If A Website Uses WordPress
Here are a some online applications that will tell you if your website uses WordPress or not, and what themes or plugins the site uses …
Is It WP – WordPress Checker
(Is It WordPress?)
Is It WP? is a free tool that can check very quickly if a site was built with WordPress or not.
Using this tool is super easy. Just add the address of the website into the search field and click the button.
It will then search through the URL files and tell you if the site was built using WordPress, and if so, which version of WordPress the site is currently using …
If the web site is not powered by WordPress, you will see a message like the one shown in the screen shot below …
To use this tool, go here:
Advanced WP Theme Checker by Satori
(WordPress Theme Detector)
WordPress Theme Detector by Satori Studio is a free tool that can help determine whether or not a website uses WordPress as its CMS engine; it will also tell you which theme the site is using and provide a link to the theme’s official page.
To use this tool, paste the URL of a web page (it doesn’t have to be the home page) into the ‘Enter website URL’ field and click on the ‘What WordPress theme is that?’ button …
(Enter website URL and click the button)
The Detector will automatically scan the website and output its theme information …
(WordPress Theme Detector displays theme results)
If a website is built with WordPress but the theme is too customized to contain any traces of its origins, the Detector will still let you know it’s a WP site by outputting a message on the right.
(Modified WordPress theme message)
If the website is not using WordPress at all, the tool will also let you know …
(This website is not WordPress)
You can try the Detector yourself by visiting this link:
Wappalyzer – Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome)
(Wappalyzer – Web Browser Add-On (Firefox / Chrome))
If you browse the net using either the Firefox or Chrome browsers and want to be able to tell if the sites that you are visiting are WP-powered, then Wappalyzer is a great extension to add to your browser.
Wappalyzer helps you identify what software is installed on the sites while you are browsing.
According to their website …
“Wappalyzer is a browser extension that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, eCommerce platforms, web servers, JavaScript frameworks, analytics tools and many more.”
It’s also an easy add-on to install and use.
Once you have installed Wappalyzer on your browser, icons will appear in your web browser allowing you to see which technologies are being used by the sites you visit …
If the WordPress icon displays on the browser menu (as the above screen shot shows), then the site uses WordPress.
(This site is built using WordPress!)
Visit the Wappalyzer extension website here:
SpyBar
(SpyBar – Browser Addon For WordPress)
SpyBar is a browser addon that lets you ‘reverse engineer’ any WordPress site you visit and see which WordPress plugins and themes are being used, right inside your web browser …
(SpyBar – Discover WordPress Plugins And Themes Used By Your Competitors)
SpyBar can be installed as a browser extension on Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox and is compatible with PC and Mac.
To download or learn more about SpyBar, go here:
Plugin Sniper
(Plugin Sniper – Find out what plugins a WordPress site is using)
Plugin Sniper lets you find out what plugins a WordPress site is using. This is a useful tool if you want to know what WordPress plugins are being used by your competitors.
Plugin Sniper is also a useful tool for researching what kinds of plugins businesses in certain niches are using …
(Search WordPress sites by categories and location)
To download or learn more about Plugin Sniper, visit the site below:
I hope you have found this information useful.
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"Learning WordPress has been a huge stumbling block for me. I've been looking for something that covers absolutely everything but doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Thank you so much ... you have just provided me with what I have been looking for! Truly appreciated!" - Tanya